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Friday, April 24, 2015

Fauxbonichi Update

Earlier in the month, I blogged about my new daily planner/journal, aka Fauxbonichi. I wanted to update on how it's working and not working for me.

My goals for my fauxbo are:

1. Keep me organized - important dates, daily to-do's.

2. Focus on my goals for this year

3. Help me capture the day

4. Another opportunity to draw.

So what's working:

I love having the monthly calendar pictured above. I can see my month at a glance, set goals for the month, and see snippets of the day. For example, on April 11th, I drew a giant croissant because I ate a whole croissant my husband bought for the kids. I couldn't resist it. So that day, I didn't give myself a silver star because I strayed from my diet.(but it was worth it!)

No matter how old I am, I still love seeng all those stars indicating I worked toward a particular goal. I do need to rethink using stickers because I run out of certain ones faster than others.

I love having a specific place for my daily todo's.

Having a daily prompt. This month in the Fauxbonichi Group on Facebook had a daily challenge to describe or draw whatever asked. So for April 11th, the prompt was to describe or draw your favorite place where you live. I chose my backyard. Having these prompts give you something to draw or journal about.

So what's not working.

Having one page per day is limiting. By the time I draw my daily prompt, I have very little space to add daily highlights. In my previous planner, I used to have a quote of the day, my dinner plans, and other daily happenings. Here's an example.

The composition book paper really isn't ideal for art. It's really thin and the page will disintegrate when you add any water-based media. I have used gesso to strengthen the paper, but that's not an ideal solution either.

The art block that I add to my daily page adds lots of bulk.

And when you open the art block, you see...

I do enjoy seeing my art inside my journal, it does limit the size of my art and the thick watercolor paper does not want to be held onto thin composition paper.

So what I've decided is to use a Miquel Ruis gridded journal, keep my monthly page, use two pages/day format and add a few more features.

Here are few of my other daily pages.

May is quickly approaching and I will be excited to start a new journal and a new layout.